Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Heads to TV

Having trouble getting your Lord of the Rings fix? Sit tight and hang on: it’s heading to a small screen near you. From Deadline Hollywood:

Amazon has closed a deal to acquire the global TV rights to The Lord of the Rings, based on the fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, with a multi-season commitment. The upcoming Amazon Prime Original will be produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

And though not much is known yet, one thing is certain: it’s going to be big.

No details on the deal were unveiled but it is expected to dwarf any TV series to date. The J.R.R. Tolkien estate had been shopping a possible series based on the late author’s The Lord of the Rings novels with a whopping price tag attached.

Amazon, Netflix and HBO had been approached about the project, which comes with an upfront rights payment said to be in the $200 – $250 million range, though some sources say the fee was slightly below $200 million. That is just for the rights, before any costs for development, talent and production, in proposition whose finances many industry observers called “insane.” It is a payment that has to be made sight unseen as there is no concept, and there are no creative auspices attached to the possible series. On top of that, the budget for a fantasy series of that magnitude is likely to be $100-$150 million a season.